The Clypeus Pollinates and Builds Nests

Biological Strategy

Mason bee

Holly Kerstiens

Image: Sam Droege / Flickr / Public Domain - No restrictions

Pollinate

One of the ways that plants can produce offspring is by making seeds that contain the genetic information to produce a new plant. Seeds can only be produced when pollen grains reach the hidden ovaries within a flower. Flowers have developed wildly diverse forms and activities, such as the production of sweet nectar to attract organisms such as bees and butterflies, that move from flower to flower, transferring pollen. Flowers will also adapt to make use of environmental influences such as wind and water as pollinators.

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Capture, Absorb, or Filter Solids

Some living systems must secure solid particles such as sediment, usually to keep the particles from hindering their health or activity. The most common way in which they do this is through filtering. To be effective, a filtering system must be appropriate to the sizes of solid particles to be captured and must capture only what is needed. It must also be effective in the appropriate media–air, water, or sometimes solids like soil. An example is mangroves, which are trees that grow along ocean coasts. Their root system slows down and settles sediment out of the water, building up soil to support the mangrove ecosystem.

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Insects

Class Insecta (“an insect”): Flies, ants, beetles, cockroaches, fleas, dragonflies

Insects are the most abundant arthropods—they make up 90% of the animals in the phylum. They’re found everywhere on earth except the deep ocean, and scientists estimate there are millions of insects not yet described. Most live on land, but many live in freshwater or saltwater marshes for part of their life cycles. Insects have three distinct body sections: a head, which has specialized mouthparts, a thorax, which has jointed legs, and an abdomen. They have well-developed nervous and sensory systems, and are the only invertebrate that can fly, thanks to their lightweight exoskeletons and small size.

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The face of a bee can be specialized to collect pollen and build nests, depending on the needs of the bee.

The clypeus of the bee is the area below the antennae, but above the labrum and the mouth. In one of the bees above, it’s yellow in color compared to the rest of the face. The clypeus is one of the ways a bee can be identified, based on its shape as well as the type of hairs present on it.

Bees such as Osmia lignaria (Pictured above) use their clypei to build nests in naturally occurring holes or gaps, building small pockets inside for each of their eggs.

Bees can also use their face to collect pollen, rubbing it against flowers and then using their legs to collect the pollen that gets caught on their clypeus. These bees tend to have longer hairs to hold onto the pollen, such as Osmia inspergens (Pictured above).

The clypeus is especially useful in a practice known as buzz-pollination, where the bee vibrates against a flower whose pollen is not accessible to make the pollen shoot out and cover the bee. The pollen is caught on the bristles of the clypeus, so it can be collected and brought back to the hive.

This information is also available from the University of Calgary Invertebrate collection, where it was curated as part of a study on design inspired by bees.

Image: Wayne Boo / Public Domain - No restrictions

Andrena asteroides, with a bright yellow clypeus.

Image: Brook Alexander / Public Domain - No restrictions

Osmia inspergens, with a clypeus more specialized for pollination than nest building.

Image: Sue Boo / Public Domain - No restrictions

Osmia lignaria, with a clypeus more specialized for nest building than pollination.

Last Updated April 3, 2019

References

“Many kinds of bees, both oligolectic and polylectic, obtain pollen from such flowers by vibrating (sonicating) them, the anther aperture usually directed toward the bee. Pollen shoots out and some of it clings to the bee, after which it can be handled in the usual way. The vibrating, caused by the wing muscles, results in bursts of audible sound, hence “buzz-pollination.” A review is by Buchmann (in Jones and Little, 1983). Müller (1996a) records buzzing during pollen collecting from Lamiaceae by bees with bristles on the frons (Rophites) or clypeus.” Michener 2007:20

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